Netflix reportedly spent $40 million on Chris Rock
Chris Rock has had well-known comedy specials on HBO like Bigger and Blacker and Never Scared, but in 2017 when he returns with his first special in eight years, it will be on Netflix. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Deadline, the streaming service outbid others including HBO, Amazon and Hulu for the rights to two specials at a price of $40 million.
Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping brought Netflix an Emmy victory this year, and now it’s adding Chris Rock to a lineup that already includes shows from some of the biggest comedians working today. Later this year, Netflix will feature specials from Joe Rogan, Michael Che, Reggie Watts, Colin Quinn and Dana Carvey. Of course, stand-up specials aren’t the only exclusives Netflix (and its competitors) are shelling out big bucks for in the content arms race, as we’re looking forward to the return of Black Mirror next week.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Deadline
Sony is releasing at least five mobile games in Asia
Sony’s PlayStation division has finally revealed how it plans to conquer mobile device. According to Wall Street Journal, the unit aims to release five to six PS games for both iOS and Android devices under the ForwardWorks subsidiary it formed in March. The company didn’t reveal a timeline along with the announcement, but it’s apparently looking to launch all of them before March 2018. All the titles will initially be available in Japan, followed by other Asian countries. Unfortunately, fans in the US and in Europe will have to wait for further info — the regions aren’t part of Sony’s current plans.
ForwardWorks is Sony’s second attempt at getting into mobile. Its first one, which offered cross-platform purchases between the PS Vita and Android, shut down for good in July 2015. As the WSJ mentioned, mobile gaming is much bigger than console gaming in Sony’s home country. It only makes sense for the company to give it another shot, especially now that its long-time rival joined forces with Apple to bring Mario to iPhones and iPads. Mobile gaming also continues to grow in the US, where it earned more money than PC and console games for the first time earlier this year.
Sony didn’t mention what it plans to bring to mobile devices exactly, but the WSJ said possibilities include the long-awaited game The Last Guardian, as well as classic titles Hot Shots Golf and I.Q.: Intelligent Qube.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Apple to Obsolete iPhone 4 and Late 2010 MacBook Air on October 31
Apple will add all iPhone 4 models, the late 2010 13-inch MacBook Air, third-generation AirPort Extreme, and mid 2009 AirPort Time Capsule to its vintage and obsolete products list starting October 31, according to Japanese website Mac Otakara.
Apple products on the vintage and obsolete list are no longer eligible for hardware service, beyond a few exceptions. Apple defines vintage products as those that have not been manufactured for more than five years but less than seven years ago, while obsolete products are those that were discontinued more than seven years ago. Each of the products added were released between 2009 and 2010.
The report specifically pertains to Apple’s vintage and obsolete products list in Japan, but the new additions will more than likely extend to the United States, Australia, Canada, and the rest of the Asia-Pacific and Europe regions.
Apple already obsoleted CDMA models of the iPhone 4 around the world last month, while the late 2010 MacBook Air joins the mid 2009 iMac, 2010 Mac mini, and mid 2010 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro among Apple’s recently obsoleted notebooks.
macOS Sierra remains compatible with the late 2010 MacBook Air, while the iPhone 4 cannot be updated beyond iOS 7.1.2. Read how to identify your MacBook Air model or how to identify your iPhone model.
The current MacBook Air has not been updated in 584 days. Refreshed models with USB-C ports are expected later this month at the earliest.
Related Roundup: MacBook Air
Buyer’s Guide: MacBook Air (Don’t Buy)
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Facebook App Gains Video Streaming Support for Apple TV
Facebook yesterday announced an update to its flagship app that lets users stream video from their iOS device directly to an Apple TV.
Now, when a video is selected in the app’s news feed or from the Saved tab, a small button appears in the top right corner which, when tapped, offers to send the video to an Apple TV on the same wireless network.
If you’re streaming a Facebook Live video to your TV, you can see real-time reactions and comments on the screen, and you can join in the conversation yourself by reacting or commenting.
The new feature – which also supports Chromecast – continues to stream the video to the TV while allowing the user to browse other parts of Facebook on their iPhone or iPad.
Facebook is free download on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. [Direct Link]
Tag: Facebook
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The Weeknd’s new music video is the FPS you never wanted to play
Canadian music artist The Weeknd dropped a music video today for his just-released single False Alarm, and it’s a doozy — a bank heist gone bloody from a gun-toting robber’s first-person perspective. If you love a bleak FPS experience of unwilling hostages, shot cops and dead buddies backed by lyrics about hollow modern romance, this is the vid for you.
While it’s very much in line with director Ilya Naishuller’s affinity for Tarantino-level violence, it’s noticeably darker than his earlier work making videos for his band, Russian rock group Biting Elbows. Vids for their two singles The Stampede and Bad Motherfucker went viral back in 2013 with their fun, kinetic first-person action. Naishullar followed it up attempting to crowdfund a feature film in his signature style, which eventually became the parkour-and-gunrunning bro violence paean Hardcore Henry, released in theaters last April.
The False Alarm video is a grimmer version of Naishuller’s testosterone-fuelled style, ditching the Guy Ritchie-esque goon fights for the faux-edginess of cop murder and partner betrayal. But like the rest of his work, it feels like an FPS game made cinematic: More gimmick than immersive innovation, with the worst of the genre’s depthlessness and violence.
Video game style trickling into music videos is an evolution of earlier experiments. Almost 20 years ago, The Prodigy released the music video for Smack My Bitch Up (NSFW) depicting a nightlong drug and booze bender from a first-person perspective. Along with its notorious sex and violence, the vid is remembered for its novel point of view, which hid the protagonist’s identity til the very end, subverting the viewer’s expectations. False Alarm, however, plays in the same toybox of immersive perspective, but it’s content to send a message with all the subtlety of rotten flowers on your ex’s doorstep. Modern romance indeed.
Source: False Alarm – The Weeknd (YouTube)
GM’s car-sharing service Maven lands in San Francisco
There’s a new option to getting around the streets of San Francisco. GM has announced the immediate availability of its car-sharing platform Maven in the City by the Bay. The automaker — which has a substantial $500 million investment in Lyft — will continue to expand the service to other metropolitan areas as it dives deeper into alternatives to individual vehicle ownership.
As expected the service only rents GM vehicles. From the Chevy Volt hybrid EV to the gigantic Escalade. Prices start at $8 an hour for cars and $14 an hour for SUVs. In all, 60 cars will be available at 30 sites throughout the city with a focus on the Financial District, SOMA, Embarcadero and Mission District.
In addition to San Francisco, Maven is currently available in Ann Arbor, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington DC and New York City.
Like ZipCar, City CarShare and Enterprise CarShare, the vehicles must be rented and returned to same site. San Francisco doesn’t allow car-share full-size vehicles to be picked up and dropped off on the street. So don’t expect a Car2Go or ReachNow type service anytime soon from the automaker or any other company. Although the company does say it’s investigating that feature.
What Maven does have going for it that other car-share services are sometimes lacking is that post-signup, the acceptance process is relatively quick. “Usually within a few hours,” according to Jeff Shields, West Coast regional director of Maven. Although, it could take up to 48 hours.
But once you are a full fledged member, members use their smartphone as their key ass opposed to the NFC cards used by ZipCar and Enterprise CarShare. Couple that with the built-in OnStar feature that can help members find a destination and even extend the length of a reservation Shields boasts that it’s a “seamless experience.”
Source: Maven
Google will launch dedicated search results for mobile
In a few months’ time, you might notice getting different sets of search results on a phone and on a computer even if you use the same terms. That’s because Google has decided to start indexing mobile websites separately, according to Search Engine Land. Mountain View has been toying with the idea since last year — the continued growth in the number of mobile users might have finally convinced the tech titan to push through with it. Gary Illyes, the company’s trends analyst, has revealed the info at digital marketing conference Pubcon, where he also assured people that Google will still have a desktop index. It just won’t be as fresh and as up to date as the one for mobile.
The big G launched several other features in the past meant to encourage website owners to tweak their domains for phone users. Last year, it made sure its mobile search results prioritize websites optimized for phones. More recently, it started marking Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on the results page, so people can choose the website with the fastest loading time.
.@methode: Google creating a sep mobile index, which will be it’s primary index. Desktop will be a secondary index,less up to date #Pubcon
— Lisa Barone (@LisaBarone) October 13, 2016
Google will still have a desktop index, it just won’t be as fresh as the mobile index. #pubcon
— Lisa Barone (@LisaBarone) October 13, 2016
Via: Business Insider
Source: Search Engine Land
PS4 adds 360-degree videos and photos in time for PSVR
Now that the PSVR has finally been released to the public, Sony can now bring new PS4 features online that take advantage of the new peripheral. A few of these come in an update to the console’s Media Player, which now lets users watch 360-degree video and photos when they don the headset. They’ve also added support for audio played in the high-definition FLAC format as well as boosting the quality of lossy music.
Any content on media servers or plugged in via USB can be accessed by switching on “VR Mode” in the Media Player’s menu, but you can’t just load up any old YouTube video and see it in glorious virtual reality. Only media that was “captured in equirectangular format by a 360-degree omnidirectional camera” and saved in a supported format can be viewed in VR. (For reference, that includes video files in MKV, AVI, MP4, MPEG2 PS, MPEG2 TS or AVCHD, as well as photos saved as JPEG, BMP or PNG.)
Sony also enhanced the Media Player’s music capabilities, introducing support for FLAC audio and automatically upscaling lower-resolution files. Compressed MP3 or AAC files will get boosted to a quality approaching that of lossless FLAC or WAV formats thanks to the company’s DSEE HX tech, previously available only in a handful of Sony’s high-resolution audio products.
Source: PlayStation blog
Evernote fixes bug that could wreck your Mac’s notes
If you use Evernote for Mac to organize your life, you’ll want to update the app as soon as you can. The note-taking and sharing service is telling macOS users that it has fixed an app bug that would delete images and other attachments. In some cases, you could trigger it just by flicking through a large number of notes too quickly. Text itself should be fine, although that’s not much help if the pictures were crucial to your notes.
Evernote says it recovered what lost data it could on its end, and has been offering a year of free Premium access to users who didn’t get data back and might not have the chance to salvage their notes with Premium’s history feature. There are likely to be some bug victims who slip through the cracks, however. And however many people get their data back, the loss doesn’t help a company that has been struggling to redefine itself and assuage customers that it’s focused on its core sync service. It’s far from a deadly flaw, but it may take a while for Evernote to rebuild its reputation among affected users.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Evernote Forums
HP will cut up to 4,000 jobs over the next 3 years
HP is no stranger to large-scale job cuts, and it’s unfortunately gearing up for another round. A filing from the PC maker (not the split-off enterprise company) has revealed that it plans to cut 3,000 to 4,000 jobs over the next three years, ending sometime in fiscal 2019. HP doesn’t say what’s prompting the cuts, but it just set its profit expectations for fiscal 2017 (which ends in October) below what financial analysts had been expecting — it could be a matter of recovering some profitability. HP’s computer shipments have been largely flat lately, so it can’t count on a surge in demand to boost its bottom line.
That’s supported by the expected savings. Although HP plans to take on $350 million to $500 million in restructuring costs, it expects to save $200 million to $300 million per year from fiscal 2020 onward. No, this won’t be much consolation to those finding themselves out of work, but it could help HP stay healthy in a mostly bleak PC market.
Via: CNBC, Reuters
Source: HP (Investis)
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